IN THE HOURS BETWEEN • TC

23. Cassoulet!

The night before the funeral, Una lies in her hotel room, strapped down by unfamiliar, cold sheets, and stares up at the ceiling. It morphs a little, the light fixture changes shape, but then she blinks and it is back as it was. There is a cup of tea steadily going cold on the bedside table, and she sits up. Gulps down some of the cool liquid and realises what a bad idea that was. Una grimaces as she swallows and lies back down, curling her fist around the edge of the duvet and pulling it towards her.

In the silence, she thinks about slender fingers, short nails, the thumbnails bitten to the quick. She thinks about pale skin and the dark hair on his calves and all the things she shouldn't be thinking about, not here. Not now.

Una rolls over in bed and stares at the wall. It's a tiny little room, just big enough for a bed and a postage stamp of a desk, with a dingy window looking out onto a brick wall and a couple of planters on the windowsill. When she looked at them earlier, they were encrusted in bird shit. Anything living stopped living there ages ago.

What is Timmy doing?

Right at this moment.

What is he up to?

Is he throwing a party with all of his mysterious friends, companions, draining the liquor cabinet? Are there people grinding on the kitchen tiles, listening to drill and making out against the fridge?

No, he wouldn't do that.

What's he doing?

Sleeping, probably. Tucked up in his bed, the sheets pulled up to his chin. Una wonders what he's been doing with his freedom in the three days since the rest of them left for the funeral.

Maybe he's been phoning his girlfriend, lolling on the couch, spreading himself out on the living room floor, leaning over the kitchen counter, sprawling over his bed.

Maybe he's taken advantage of being home alone, maybe he's been jumping up and down on her bed, nosing through the ingredients in the kitchen, looking through the documents in the downstairs filing cabinet.

What if he goes through her drawer?

It's irrational, but Una starts to panic. He'd find things that she doesn't want him to find. Letters, mementos. A tiny, crumpled apology note written in bad English and a shaky hand. The bus ticket from that first day that they went to London. The stone he gave her once and told her to keep because it was the same colour as her eyes.

(At first, she'd been offended. But sometimes she goes into the drawer, finds the stone while looking for something else, and turns it over in her palm, wondering how on earth he could have known without having studied her eyes. Sometimes, she holds the stone up next to her face in the wardrobe mirror and blinks until it almost becomes a third eye.)

He won't go through the drawer, is what she tells herself. He won't do anything stupid. He's probably asleep right now, and you should be too. Una resolves to sleep, turns over and shuts her eyes expectantly.

Nothing happens except the buzz of her phone on the bedside table. She reaches out and picks it up to find a text from an unknown number.

I hope things go well tomorrow, Una

She wants so badly for it to be from Timmy, but it can't be. Timmy would have texted Frank if he wanted to say something to her. She opens the message and types back a quick response, asking who it is.

The reply is instantaneous, and it makes her heart pick up a little. Una finds herself smiling and she puts the phone back down. She closes her eyes and etched onto the roof of her eyelids is the brightness of her phone screen, the letters spelling out Timothée.